engleski

Strolling through Hell – The birth of the aggressive flâneur

Among numerous starting points for a potential analysis of the complex Victorian narrative tapestry that is Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell, one segment in particular stands apart. It is the representation of the notorious Jack the Ripper, here elevated as a key figure for both Victorian London and the violently approaching twentieth century. However, the complexly portrayed image of Dr William Gull as the serial killer cannot be contained or understood within the ‘simplifying’ frame of a criminal. What this analysis proposes is a reading of this prototypical serial killer through the prism of his interaction with the urban spaces surrounding him. Drawing on the spatial theoretical framework of authors such as Yi Fu Tuan, Henri Lefebvre, as well as the concept of the flâneur, presented and developed by Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin, the paper constructs its analysis on the premise of the serial killer as a conceptually new, aggressive type of the flâneur, positioned within a supratemporal context. This direct challenge to the canonical understanding of the flâneur allows for a simultaneous coexistence of the Victorian gentleman scrutinous of the vibrant streets of London, and the obsessed killer whose actions foreshadow the looming twentieth century.

From Hell ; Walter Benjamin ; Victorian London ; aggressive flâneur ; space

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